Undergraduate Institution and Major/Degree:

Major Advisor(s):

Research Description:

In the Ashe lab we are studying Alzheimer's Disease (AD), particularly the pathobiology of disease in relation to Amyloid-beta and tau proteins, which make up the pathological hallmark of AD, namely amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, respectively.

Recently, the field has focused on soluble oligomeric forms of Amyloid beta as possible toxic species that induce cognitive impairment and may trigger downstream neurodegenerative processes. My project is to determine whether these distinct Abeta oligomeric species can be found in Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of living individuals and determine their predictive value for future cognitive decline in cognitively intact individuals.